I just got an email from vBulletin/Jelsoft advertising the fact that vBulletin 4.0 beta 3 is live and available for active license holders.

I have not visited the vBulletin site in some time, although last time I had I noticed they increased the prices of vBulletin licenses and renewals somewhat. I was irritated at this, but took it in stride attributing it to inflation and the fact that vBulletin was getting more popular and feature packed.

Well I just visited their site today and they've completely redone the pricing structure to concide with the upcoming version 4.0. Now they're offering two products, vBulletin 4.0 CMS and vBulletin 4.0 Forums - both of which are two 'seperate products' but integrate with each other to form 'vBulletin Publishing Suite". "Wow, cool" you say?

The kicker? The prices have nearly doubled from what they used to be. If I wanted to renew our 'inactive' license so I would be able to download and upgrade to 4.0 it would cost me $175, and that's with a discount for past members with inactive licenses... and that's ONLY for what they are now calling "vBulletin Forum Classic".

I am so fucking pissed right now.

Check it out:

www.vbulletin.com

And actually there is no 'license renewal' system anymore. They've gone to a 'this version costs this much' license model. Which means I could pay $200 for vBulletin 4 and then tomorrow they could come out with vBulletin 5 and I'd have to pay another $200 for it.

Goddamn I knew this would suck the moment Jelsoft and vBulletin were bought and went 'corporate'.

You could always convert to Simple Machines?

runt Wrote:You could always convert to Simple Machines?

I've thought about it, but even the outdated version of vBulletin we're running now (2 years old) has way more functionality and a better backend than SMF.

I suppose we'll eventually move on to something else when the need arises, but I'm more pissed that I've supported this product all these years and they've paid back that support by giving me (and everyone else) the proverbial shaft.

Nox Wrote:I've thought about it, but even the outdated version of vBulletin we're running now (2 years old) has way more functionality and a better backend than SMF.

I suppose we'll eventually move on to something else when the need arises, but I'm more pissed that I've supported this product all these years and they've paid back that support by giving me (and everyone else) the proverbial shaft.

Just trying to be helpful